License

Licensed under a Creative Commons License

Disclaimer

All data and information provided on this site is on an as-is basis and for informational purposes only. We do neither guarantee for accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of information on this blog nor be liable for any errors in this information or any damages arising from its use. This blog may contain links to other web sites. We do not have any control over the content contained on those sites.

How to realize an alternative Design of Bullet Graphs in Tableau

These posts included three variations of the well known standard design of Bullet Graphs described in Stephen Few’s design specifications: no qualitative background areas (e.g. poor, satisfactory, good), data labels for actual and target as well as the visualization of the gap (target minus actual) with a data label and a span line to put the gap label into context, i.e. a thin line between actual bar and target line with arrows at the beginning and the end.

How would this alternative design of a Bullet Graph look like in Tableau?

Well, truth be told, I never managed to create an exact replica of my Excel implementation in Tableau. The Excel version is using error bars to display the span line of the gap. A comparable feature is not available in Tableau, but you can still realize the alternative design of Bullet Graphs in Tableau coming close to the Excel implementation.

Today’s post presents a short description of how to realize my alternative design of Bullet Graphs on Tableau Public including the option to download the Tableau workbooks.

An interactive Multiple Row Bullet Graph in Excel displaying the gap and data labels only when hovering over a bar with the mouse

Long time Clearly and Simply readers and contributors Matt Grams (check out Matt’s guest post: Bullet Graphs for Excel: A Simple Way?) and Leonid Koyfman (Leonid's LinkedIn Profile) liked the alternative design in general, but also came up with a justified and constructive criticism regarding the Multiple Row Bullet Graph:

They noted that

the chart is too busy and a bit overloaded, especially if you are using it in a relatively small size, e.g. on a dashboard with other views

in certain edge cases, the data labels may overlap and become unreadable

Valid points. I fully agree with Matt and Leonid.

To make the chart less busy and more readable, Leonid suggested to turn it into an interactive Bullet Graph which displays the span of the gap (the thin line with arrows between actual bar and target line) and the data labels for gap and target only, if the user hovers over the bar with the mouse:

This interactive version definitely looks much cleaner, but it also comes with a few disadvantages:

The user has to activate the chart (click on the chart area) first to make the mouse hover action available

The approach is not applicable for dashboards delivered in a static version like PDF or printed. It only makes sense, if the user directly interacts with the chart in Excel

Unlike the original version, this solution requires VBA code

Because of the VBA code, it takes more time to transfer the template from the example workbook to your own model. You can’t simply drag the sheet over to your file, you also have to copy the entire code from all objects, modules and class modules

It requires Microsoft Excel 2013 or later

Anyway, it still is a viable and interesting alternative to the original version.

Monday, May 08, 2017

An alternative design of Bullet Graphs: no qualitative ranges, additional data labels and a visualization of the performance gap (if applicable)

More than 10 years ago, Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge introduced the Bullet Graph: an alternative chart type to replace the formerly (and unfortunately sometimes still) popular gauges and speedometers on dashboards. A Bullet Graph visualizes a performance metric compared to a target (or other comparative measures) in a small, clear, simple and effective view. In the meantime, the Bullet Graph has become a widely respected, even standard chart type. Some major Data Visualization software applications like Tableau Software natively support Bullet Graphs.

I am using Bullet Graphs very often in my models for a very long time already, especially on Performance Measurement Reports and Dashboards. Starting with Stephen’s original design specification, I received a lot of feedback from my clients over the years. As a consequence, I made a few variations to the design of the Bullet Graph regarding the qualitative ranges, data labels and the performance gap (if applicable, i.e. if actual is smaller than target).

Today’s article describes my variations of the original Bullet Graph design, explains the background why I made them, shows how to implement the charts in Microsoft Excel and provides the corresponding Excel workbook for free download.

Tuesday, May 02, 2017

Options for displaying a Progress Indicator in Microsoft Excel during time consuming VBA procedures and a Speed Comparison of the different approaches

If your Excel model includes time consuming VBA procedures or algorithms, you certainly want to update the users about the progress of the code. In principle, there are three different approaches: you can either update Excel’s Status Bar at the bottom left of the Excel window, use a dedicated cell range or an object (e.g. a chart) directly on the active worksheet and update the cells by VBA or simply display a VBA user form showing a progress bar.

Today’s article presents a selection of examples for each of these approaches, discusses their pros and cons and compares the techniques regarding the additional runtime to show the progress indicator. As always, the post comes with a link to the used Progress Indicators Speed Comparison Tool for free download.